Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 3

Chapter 3

SEDONA

I don’t know how long I sat on the bedroom floor, my back against the bed, staring at nothing. The afternoon light had shifted, getting darker, casting long shadows on the room that I had shared with Logan for three years.

Shared…what a joke. He hadn’t touched me in months, finding excuses to sleep at the company or in his study downstairs.

Now I knew why.

The scattered medical papers lay in front of me as I reached out for them again. Stage three gastric cancer. Three months without treatment. Maybe a year with it.

I picked up one of the pamphlets Dr. Reynolds had given me-“Living with Cancer: A Guide for Patients and Families.” The smiling faces on the cover, surrounded by loving relatives, seemed to mock me. What family did I have? A husband who wished I was someone else and actively cheating on me with his first love without feeling guilty? A son who found me annoying and a nuisance and wasn’t even missing me? A mother-in-law who’d just confirmed I was nothing more than a placeholder in her’s son’s life and my only usefulness was giving birth to Nick?

My real family was in Seattle. Cameron, my older brother, who’d probably spent the last three years furious with me for running away without an explanation. My parents, who I’d abandoned without explanation.

Hell Enzo, the man I was supposed to marry, who’d done nothing to deserve being left at the altar.

I’d been so self-righteous, so convinced that I was choosing love over obligation. So I’d run, determined to find real love, authentic happiness. So I could tell my parents ‘I told you so’

Instead, I’d found this.

A fresh wave of nausea hit me, and I barely made it to the bathroom before I was sick. When I finally lifted my head, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and barely recognized the woman staring back. My face was pale, my weight was reduced and the clothes that suited me before months ago, Were big on me, basically drowning me in this.

How had I not seen it? How had I dismissed all these signs as stress?

Because you were too busy trying to save a marriage that was already dead, a bitter voice whispered in my mind.

I splashed cold water on my face and returned to the bedroom. My phone was ringing-Logan’s name flashing on the screen. My heart skipped a beat as I felt hope bubbling up in me. Maybe he’d realized he needed to come home. Maybe Nick had asked for me. Maybe he realized that Katherine was his past and he wanted to choose me.

I grabbed the phone. “Logan?”

“Mom?”

My breath caught. It was Nick’s voice, small and uncertain. For a moment, he sounded like my little boy again, the premature baby I’d held in the NICU, the toddler who’d cried for me in the night.

“Nick, sweetheart-started, but a coughing fit interrupted me. I tasted copper in my mouth and pulled the phone away, pressing my hand to my Tips. When I looked at my palm, there was blood.

“Mom? Are you sick?”

I closed my eyes, trying to steady my breathing. At least he cared enough to ask. At least some part of my son still loved me.

“I’m okay, baby,” I managed, my voice hoarse. “I just miss you so much. When are you coming home?”

There was a pause, and I heard Katherine’s voice but her voice was too low, for me to hear what she saod.

“You’re lying,” Nick said, his tone shifting back to that coldness and disdain.

“You’re just faking being sick so I’ll come home. But I’m not stupid, Mom. I know what you’re doing.”

“Nick, I’m not-”

“Aunt Katherine says you always manipulate people to get what you want. And I’m not falling for it. I don’t want to come home. I want to stay here with Dad and Aunt Katherine. Stop pretending to be sick to get me to come back home. It’s pathetic.”

The line went dead.

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